Toy:Orange Brain Noodle

The pipe cleaner. It takes a moment to realize that the pipe clearner was invented to, well, clean a pipe. Once a popular pastime (at least among men, college freshman hoping to affect a sophisticated air, and Al Capps's Mammy Yokum), pipe smoking has these days all but disappeared. And one might think that the pipe cleaner went the way of the pipe, but of course, it is still around. Shortly after its invention in the early 1900s by two Rochester men--John Harry Stedman and Charles Angel--the fuzzy pipe cleaner found use as children's craft material. Its pile, or plushness, and its stiff wire core made it well suited for bending into figures, animals, and creatures of a child's imagination. Over the years, the plain, white, six- or seven-inch utilitarian pipe cleaner of Stedman's invention has evolved for children's use into twelve-inch cleaners of a variety of colors. Brain Noodles, made by Holgate Toys are kits of enlarged pipe cleaners fifteen to twenty inches long with very thick piles for making elaborate creations. The Brain Noodles's Web site advertises the product as pipe cleaners on steroids and the site offers kids directions for making dinosaurs, insects, and puppies. For teachers, the Web site contains lesson plans that employ pipe cleaners to teach letter forms, geometric shapes, and even colors.